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Chapter 1

August 1982, Florida

Wednesday started as a day full of promise. Marion Greene had been promised fresh news. She even made a special effort to tidy her flat for her visitor. Then, watching out from the sunny balcony, she looked down at the passers-by walking on the wide sidewalk below. She searched the faces to see if she could guess which of those strangers it would be.

A tall man strolled across the road toward the entrance to the apartment block but, having crossed the road, ambled on towards the hotel at the end of the street. Not him, then. An elderly man paused below her, caught his breath, then he too moved on. A young couple met up, twined into each other and moved along the sidewalk with the ease that happiness brought. Not them.

A sharp rap on the front door. Marion nearly collided with the coffee table as she took reckless steps from the balcony and raced through the lounge to answer that call. The latch conspired to defeat her until, rattled but excited, she was able to open the door.

"Marion Greene?"

"Yes, yes. That's me" was her impetuous reply, followed by "You must be from the tracing service" while she stood and stared. "Oh... I am sorry. How rude you must think me. Come in, come in."

She could barely wait as she ushered her visitor in. Even before he was seated the question tumbled out.

"Tell me. Tell me. You have found them, haven't you?"

She was about to have news of what happened to her parents nearly forty years ago. The search for her mother and her father had been her dream ever since settling in Florida; the hope of finding some trace of them. What a surprise this would be for her brother.

"Well Miss Greene. It's not that straightforward. There are certain formalities we have to go through."

Marion listened without hearing. "Yes. I see," she said. The questions seemed multitude and unending.

"Your parents. Their names?...Their parents?"

The answers rolled off her tongue, one after the other.

"They lived where?"

She paused, shook her head. She did not know.

"Uncles, aunts, other relatives?"

"None that survived. I have a brother Saul, living. I sent you that information."

"You understand, Miss Greene, we have to be sure of the identity."

Other children and parents separated before they were taken to the concentration camps had found each other. Not many, but some did; why should it not be them.

"All these years I have always thought of our parents. Kept hope here in my heart. Hope that somewhere, somehow, they are alive."

"So many did not make it. So many were lost forever."

Her visitor stood and walked toward the balcony with its beckoning sunlight. He paused, reflectively, before he turned and said what he had come to say.

"Your mother we know, Miss Greene, was one of those who did not make it."

Marion groaned in anguish as her mind filled with faces from pictures she had seen of women queued up, waiting their turn to endure the final solution. She fought to remember how her parents looked when she saw them last. Her legs shook uncontrollably as she fell forward into his open arms in search of solace.

Instead of comfort she found a harsh embrace. Bemused in that moment, she was efficiently turned, pushed and then manhandled towards the open window through which she could see only the brightness of the sunshine. She was barely aware of the approach of the balconys edge, felt only the briefest touch as her body was lifted clear. Swiftly and surely she was thrown from it.

"But your fahter, Jewess, how he has served our cause", was the last thing she ever heard.

She crashed to the pavement below.

 

Unlike her mother's fate in the camp, her body now waited hands that would bathe her, then gently lay her to rest. Unlike her mother, whose body spiralled away from the chimneys of the crematorium in smoke, her death would be provided with all the trappings and outward appearance of a peaceful passing. But, exactly like her mother, she ended life a broken soul.